A percutaneous, closed, or mini-open bone harvesting method for orthopedic, neurosurgical, ear nose & throat (ENT), oral, maxillo-facial, rheumatology, and bone marrow aspiration procedures.
Orthopedic, neurosurgical, spinal, ear-nose-throat, oral-maxillo-facial, and rheumatology procedures require the removal of bone or bone cells to culture or place in other parts of the body to permit fusion or bone formation. The current method for bone harvesting requires an open surgical procedure involving wide exposure of the iliac crests, ulna, radius, or femur. These areas are exposed with an incision over the donor sites, followed by the stripping of muscle to expose the donor site area. The removal of the bone is performed utilizing curettes, drills, or free-hand bone coring devices.
These open procedures usually cause very frequent donor site pain and morbidity as they involve significant incisional scarring, vast muscle stripping, damage to surrounding tissues, and over harvesting of the donor site. This has become one of the greatest complaints and problems of patients recovering from surgeries involving bone and bone marrow harvesting procedures.
Recently, inventors have begun creating "minimally invasive" methods to harvest bone. U.S. Pat. No. 5,556,399 to Huebner (1995) discloses a "coring drill used to harvest bone from a donor area of the human body." This stainless steel device is the first device of its nature, and it is used freehand, under power, without guided controls and requires an open incision with wide muscle re-section.
In 1997, Spinetech, Inc. (Minneapolis, Minn.) released a patent pending "minimally invasive" cylindrical bone harvester that is used through a mini-open procedure, but without guided control. This device is not applicable to a percutaneous technique because it requires a large incision and muscle stripping to expose the donor site. The cutter is inserted into the donor site bone freehand. More importantly, the cutter tip is a uni-directional threaded two piece unit which must be disassembled to remove bone tissue from the collection tube. This makes the device unsuitable to a closed or percutaneous procedure due to the potential for disassembly inside the patient. Bi-directional cutting action will dislodge the cutter tip from the shaft.
Biomedical Enterprises, Inc. (San Antonio, Tex.) created the patent pending Bone & Marrow Collection System (BMCS), which utilizes a manual or motor driven drill bit and a disposable collection tube. This technique provides limited initial drill stabilization, but does not guide or control the direction of the tip after cutting action begins. In addition, it still utilizes an open procedure and vast muscle resection. The BMCS is an auger-drill type that is lacking an adequate delivery system for placing the guidance tube through a percutaneous or closed technique. Also, the BMCS does not prevent the drill cutter from advancing too far into the donor site, thus violating the surrounding bony architecture, tissue, and muscle. The BMCS also does not provide an accurate and easy method to measure the amount of material captured by the drill and collection tube, and is extremely susceptible to frequent clogging during repositioning of the tip.